For The Love Of Auntie

The door was slightly ajar so I poked my head inside, Auntie was still sporting her ruby red kimono putting up a picture frame, covering a crack on the wall I presume. I knocked, but the cuckoo clock clucked five chimes, droning out my soft tap, tap taps. Not having my contacts in, I couldn't clearly make out the faces in the picture. Impaired vision is a powerless feeling. You constantly mistake people and gender becomes obscured, which probably is the only good feature of it, although I knew the characters in that picture had to be my brother and me as kids, but at what age and where the photo was taken I am not sure. Pictures give me a problem. Do I remember what actually happened the day the event in the picture took place or do I remember the event because I have a picture in front of me reminding me of it? Stuff like that pollutes my mind - makes me damn mad. Dam mad -an endless loop. It can even lead you to believe that you're somebody you're not. Thinking about stuff like that made me who I am, Bobby Thornton, which I'm still referred to as, not Robert and especially not Bob since, although I enjoy watching palindromes laid down on Scrabble boards, I am not ready to be referred to as Bob because that would imply a sense of balance inherent in the name itself which I have not yet earned.

Since I'm an adman now, at the wonderful Grey Advertising Agency, way the hell out of upstate New York and since I've always had a penchant for Surgeon general warnings on boxes and cartons I'm giving you snail paced readers, cliff note enthusiasts, plot skimmers and Utna Reader book reviewers, a foreboding: get out while you can. Those of you out there who think that word games, palindromes and stuff like that are a complete waste of time then I concede to you right away and hope never to make your acquaintance. But for those of you that are at least liberal minded enough to hear someone out even when they appear to incriminate themselves the more they gab then I'll attempt to explain to you the best I can my miserable childhood, shadowing a brother who was his mother's favorite child. You see I've referred to my mother as Auntie for most of my life because I've known that she cared for Anders more than she did for me. It only seemed appropriate to call her Auntie despite her being my biological mother. My whole life I've had an unrequited love for her. Unrequited platonically speaking. Jealous I am not. Lets get one thing straight I genuinely respected my brother Anders, wanting more than anything to be like him. For chrissakes I can't be jealous of him now when he's dead.

Sitting in the room with Auntie last Thanksgiving was brutally discomforting especially since she set a place for him. Anders wasn't just cherished by Auntie or secretly idolized by me, he was or at least it seemed that he was universally popular. The approval I sought was not from his friends or his girlfriends, which he easily attracted by his undisputed good looks, but from our mother.

Just wait till she finds out that ol' Bobby Thornton is no longer a useless social worker. Wait till she finds out that I get paid big money to play word games all day. No. Schmoozing is what she understands. I'll tell her I have P.O.S.H [portside out starboard home] lunches with big wig people. Some really have big wigs, the receding hairliners do. Big news, big news will get her out of her ruby red kimono and put on something dressy. My caged excitement or maybe the fact that I hadn't gone to the bathroom since I left to catch the bus this morning was running wild in me. I didn't budge, standing as if blocking the doorway as a guard, a minor character, from a Shakesperean play with an out of character major line to deliver. By the front door my leg bounced really needing to take a whiz. Auntie continued playing with the frame, needing I suppose, to find its best alignment. She took it off the wall, then lowered just below her wedding photo. The black and white blur had always resided at that particular place on the wall. Although I could barely make it out from where I was standing, the image as if it was right in my hands was clear from years of inspecting it. Her mouth was closed tightly and crookedly and she appeared to be snarling, her eyes fixed on Lester's hand wrapped around her waist. Come to think of it, besides that wedding photo, I'm not sure if I've seen them that intimate with each other. I've never actually seen them kiss.

I squinted to make out the photo as it receded from me. From where it stood it looked like a finger painting as she walked off with it. I pulled out my glasses from my coat and put them on. The picture, of course, was of Anders and myself trick or treating. Anders in his homemade pirate costume, tiny blonde hairs peeking out from under the felt hat with a skull patch that Auntie had sawn on the front. I stood in my plastic coated knight's costume, circa Woolworth 1970 something, my plastic mask down exposing only my brown slits for eyes. The framed snapshot, frozen time, burning in my brain - recollection hmm? Did I remember us trick or treating that day or did I just remember Auntie rehashing about old times, her voice of yesteryear swirling in my head.

"Do you remember that?" Auntie said, her muffled words, addressed to the wall.

"Of course I do. I was ten and he was thirteen," I slurred, taken off guard. It would've been nice if I surprised her with my good news. She struck first though. "Say how did you know I was here?"

"It was the last time he went with you," she said turning her head toward the window, perhaps to avoid speaking directly to me. Her eyes following the small stream of leaves, fluttering by the window. People in general, and Auntie was no exception, seldom took notice of me. When someone did it wasn't even my nice outfit, the rare occasions I wore one, like the red ribbed roll turtleneck on my person now, given to me by the lady standing across from me holding the frame two Christmas's ago. People only took notice of me when I shot my mouth off. Having bland undefined features some of which could be altered by surgery as in my slightly crooked nose. Why fuss with a rhinoplasty when I had big elephant ears anyway, mirroring the jade artifact on the coffee table with a scratch on its right tusk. In college I once overheard some girls describing my face as being flat as a pancake with a giant sausage of a nose. In an art class kids caricaturized my big ears and my high forehead in their sketchpads. Big ears and a high forehead quite a tandem. My turtleneck suddenly irritated me. I rolled up neckline. The sleeves themselves humongous I pulled them up to my elbows or else I would continue swimming in them. Anders, my polar opposite, would have fit snugly into the sweater having a much larger physique and longer arms to boot. His picture, even as a pirate prodigy was handsome, deep blue eyes, full, round and liquid, complemented by smooth skin, that I never saw on my own face and of course his brilliantly chiseled nose, chin and mouth and especially his teeth housed inside it - no overlap or overbite. My back molar still ached from my recent drilling.

"He was so grown up then, he went along with the traditional Halloween that year because - well because you were still very much into it."

"Have some chocolates?" I felt compelled to change the subject, pretending that it may have been too painful for Auntie to take, when in reality it was his perfect image that made me feel insecure and unwanted. Saying chocolate hurt my teeth. Chocolate however, was a neutral subject, relating to Halloween and it was readily accessible in my sweaty hand, so I used it to nudge her away from Anders. She better not be on some stupid diet now - I undid the Baci box bow and licked my gums since the novocaine had long worn off. Her expression wasn't sidetracked by my comment.

"He knew tradition was important to you and wanted to prolong your childhood together, even though he was becoming so grown up. Just look at your faces. Were you about to stick your tongue out? It looks a lot like you're in the process." She pointed her scrawny finger at the picture and I sighed a sigh of apathy having heard her comment countless times before. The tongue that she allegedly swears she saw was really just a burst of bubble gum in its budding stage, but why argue, it never got us anywhere on this matter; all the same I was notorious for spoiling pictures with my uncomely appearance. Jack-o-lantern smiles, one perfect, accentuated by a charming dimple, one not so charming marked by a smirk of a smile and great big ears. Recapturing the memory of that day was simple, it was in the picture, but though I loved Halloween and I tried to remember that particular day, somehow a melange of Halloweens invaded me. A slideshow of images: messy hands of melted candy, the smell of smashed pumpkins and the feeling of cool but pleasant autumnal air. Auntie kept babbling about us, but I only saw her mouth moving. I heard static or imagined it as she dusted the VCR, her nutcracker mouth opening and closing and the images of Halloween in my mind. Did I or didn't I distinctly remember that day? When I was ten and Anders was thirteen we were both avid scrabble players. I think I recall our games, of which we hadn't a single photo of, better than events that we had pictures of. Talk about selective memory. Anders was possessive about certain things, some of which belonged to me, at least in credit, which I seldom received, palindromes was one of them. A bookworm, my head was full of knowledge. Anders on the other hand was a- as the euphemists and politically correct put it the borrower of the family. More bluntly he was a categorical pilferer a born plagiarizer, borrowing my ideas and never returning them, but he was so aplomb that there were times that I forgot I was the rightful owner. For trivial things I forgave, but not the day that he cheated me out of my palindromes. It's bizarre how my mind recalls childhood events, with such audible clarity, almost spooky, since those little voices or more precisely those younger higher pitched voices, since that is what they are, measured by decibel not decimal…

"OGOPOGO. That's not a word," Anders' little voice corrected me. "You can think what you want but you'll have to challenge me. Let's see that's twelve points plus double word score. That'll be minus twenty-four for you and plus twenty-four for me if you want to challenge it."

"It's a sea monster," I told him.

"Sounds more like a character from a Lewis Carrol story and we all know what that means - FICTION. Take my word on it. I'm beating you by thirty-seven points. There's no need for you to dig yourself a deeper ditch."

"Where's the dictionary?" I went into our room and came back with a pocket sized one. I flipped through it for a good five minutes.

"It has to be here, I can't remember where I saw it but I read it."

"FICTION. You read in some sci-fi story."

"Probably."

"There you see it's a made up word. Nice try though." Anders turned over the sand timer. A sudden noise made me flinch. I shook the tiles off the board.

"What the hell? You're a sore loser," Anders said.

"She's back," I said scrambling to pick up the remaining pieces on the floor.

"Already." Unlatching itself the door opened. Auntie dropped her bags down. A can of tuna rolled across the floor. She came right over to the board and I began to stuff the chips as quickly as possible into their gray bag.

"You just couldn't wait to play on the carpet I vacuumed. I suppose tables and chairs make the game less fun."

"Less challenging," I replied.

"Well it's full of dust now. Look at this mess. I want you to stand by me and see it. From right here it looks absolutely abominable."

Anders rushed over to her. "It doesn't look so bad Ma"

"It doesn't?"

"Well it doesn't look awful. I'll vacuum it again if you want me to."

"No we're going to do your homework. Besides Bobby didn't take out the garbage yesterday. Let him vacuum."

Anders didn't respond. Auntie went over to our score sheets and smiled when she saw that Anders was in the lead. Anders smiled too picking up the stray tuna can and put it back into the bag; he lost his smile when he looked my way. Then he followed Auntie to the kitchen with three heaping bags of groceries. I stopped picking up the tiles pretending instead to play. Plunking down the necessary tiles to spell wolf in Latin and I believe also in Romanian, I enjoyed the balance of the word. LUPUL forwards and backwards was interchangeable. It was beautiful. I enjoyed it on the carpet for now, since Anders wouldn't allow foreign words during an official game, the little dictator. Back then I wasn't aware that such words were called palindromes, but I knew about them before him. He was the first child; I couldn't take that from him, but in this seemingly insignificant way he denied me acknowledgement.

Ten years old back then, it's crazy how I seem to remember those events so vividly, his whiney voice and that rolling can of tuna. So long ago, almost twenty years have gone by. Trillions of pixels of imagery perhaps a googolplex of pixels in my head now. So many images in my head and I can distinctly recall the sights and sounds of that day and I hardly remember the bus that I stepped off barely half an hour ago. What color was it anyway?

Auntie came toward me now her hands full of magazines and what appeared to be a family album buried underneath. She shuffled through the magazines and pulled out one. She handed me the latest copy of Architectural Digest, which seemed odd considering Anders was dead. For many years she bought us both a subscription. Anders' time was so precious that she wanted to make sure that I was kept informed about the architectural industry, so as not to waste his time when we conversed. I used the magazine as a shield and watched her put the album down on the coffee table and walk over to the VCR.

Unable to keep things bottled up I was ready to share my good news, what I had come for. I blurted out, "You're not going to believe this but-"

Auntie sprayed Windex onto the dysfunctional VCR. It hadn't worked in a year unable to cough up the tape it swallowed while the horrific news came in last year. In truth none of us have fully recovered since we are notorious for denying how things really are, but Auntie's behavior has been the oddest. Momentarily her demeanor seemed pleasant, possibly bordering on contentment. The last time I was over a few months back she shuddered at the sound of his name, but now she spoke about Anders as if he were in the room and she was perfectly in control of her emotions. Her contentment, if we can call it that, made me not want to share my excitement with her, but I suddenly felt the urge relieve my bladder.

When I was done with draining the dragon, as I had heard a guy at work say, I didn't feel relief but agitation. What if she didn't care about my new job? And why were there mounted doilies, charcoals and frames with buttons decorating the wall across from the porcelain god? Where did her little wreathes go? The bathroom had always had a "Country Living" look ever since I was a child. There were bronze faucet knobs in our privy now. I ran back to double check. Bathroom design was the least of my concerns, but I waited a moment there to collect myself before returning.

I needed the right moment to enter the living room and the best possible frame of mind, an ode to Leibniz crossed with James. Accept the best of all possible worlds - Anders always said that I made too much of words, read too much into their sub meaning, subtexts, it barreled through my subconscious and other times the movement, the ideas shuffling through my head were a little gentler. Possibilities, the infinite number of them and still growing consumed me. The problem with you, my brother warned time after time, is that you get too caught up on the way things could be instead of how they are. Secondly it mattered most what people thought of you even if it wasn't true. Make people believe you're extraordinary - MONUMENTAL!

Auntie believed this; I did too. His life ended with a monumental sky diving death. How can you compete with that? Competing over a brave death is suicide. The news alone, as it came in, that single moment was indescribable; an endless chorus of wails followed.

Cloie, Auntie's oldest sister, was in the house at the time when the call came in. She and Auntie were watching "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" with Auntie last Thanksgiving Eve. Wrong holiday right spirit. The tape suddenly went kerplunk. I didn't arrive till much later. Auntie was dumbstruck and Cloie by her side. Anders was gone and I reached out to hug her, but she pushed me away; she sat by her sister. From the time the news came in Cloie was a threat to me.

My tooth ached badly. Palm to my mouth, I pressed hard; the pain grew sharper. Competing with Anders was wrong. It was all I could think about- which is why I got involved in the SCAM [Shoddy Corporate American Machine]. He couldn't defend himself anymore. My thoughts were wicked, but I wanted my five minutes of fame in front of her.

I should've been part of Grey a year ago. My good news would've eradicated her despondency. Yet I am glad that Auntie, the workaholic, prevents dust from mingling with the furniture and appliances. Home is where her hand is scrubbing and disinfecting. Makes me fidgety, but happy. My career change alone isn't enough to save her from depression. I need to twiddle something between my fingers - a yo-yo perhaps. Walk the dog while she windexes. Order, meticulous dusting, straightening, adjusting, she constantly worked; order was paramount. From as early as I can remember each room was a model for "Country Living." She even took pictures of each room: before and after shots. Furniture wasn't only utilitarian it served to entrap unsuspecting admirers. Become one with the environment: admire furniture while your foot was tangled by it. Her home her badge of pride and the pictures that she never sent to be published, showed her passion for early American country homes and fine furniture. It preserved a record of her decorative acumen. She was without personal ambition. That was reserved for my brother. Her stuff should be in magazines now. Even our bathroom could be a contender. It's a contender now, though the Victorian theme would be better suited for "Better Home and Gardens" than in "Country Living." Come to think of it I could see it in Martha Stewart's "Living." The cabinet, table or chair her selection made her the queen of sheen in Up-State New York

"You redid the bathroom," I said. She nodded, fumbling with what appeared to be a new picture frame. She tilted it to the left and took a few paces back to observe it from a distance. It didn't matter that she was inching closer toward me, she felt just as distant the closer she came toward me. The next time she looks my way I'll tell her about Grey Advertising. Eye contact that's all I need. That's all anyone really needs anyway. She made a move toward the couch. I followed. She looked toward me and I flinched. The front door was open, not that it mattered, but I looked at it.

"Where's the rocking chair?" I said nervously, deciding to stand.

"It had a little accident. One of the legs snapped," she trumpeted.

"When did that happen?"

"I can't remember the exact day, it just tumbled over." You got the impression that Auntie was describing her father tumbling over in the chair, the way she told me. She never cared much for him or her mother, but I loved both my grandparents very much and they, believe it or not, took to me.

Auntie, holding the broken VCR in her hands like the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, cleaned it thoroughly, as if that would bring it back to life.

"It's in the basement. Take a look. There's also some of that thick paper you like down there. You might want to sketch a little." Continuing the subscription to Architectural Digest wasn't so unusual, Auntie could've forgot to cancel it, but wanting me to sketch was peculiar. She couldn't expect me to turn into Anders? Could she? Maybe that's what she wanted, but I certainly didn't have the knowledge of architecture let alone the passion.

"They're two types of paper. You can use the thin plain white one first." Courageously I sat next to Auntie, not on the couch, but on a chair next to it. Two and three point perspective and other architectural stuff popped into my head.

"Bobby is Maria Natalia coming again for Thanksgiving dinner," her big blues addressed me.

"I think she's busy," I said flipping through a magazine on the coffee table. Why would she want Maria Natalia to visit us? Former fiancées rank pretty high in the painful memory department - how could she see her, on the same holiday, a mere year from his death. Her willingness to transpose her bulky sweater-wearing son into her favorite son was far fetched. But what could Auntie gain by having Anders' former fiancée for dinner except and this had to be a long shot by any sharpshooters standards - that I might charm her? Could she have also forgotten that I was gay? What if Brad called me here sitting down at the Turkey dinner? I didn't remember giving him the family number; I was so tipsy at that little shindig that it certainly was possible. How stupid could I be? He wouldn't call on a major holiday. He models from time to time though. He isn't even my type. If Auntie wants me to charm Maria Natalia, then charm is what I'll show her. Why shut the door to the past when it was surrounding me, on the walls with our pictures, with the magazine in my hand - it was on both our minds and it was my only chance to gain her respect. On the periphery things were changing, redecoration, but the central theme was still Anders: king of the house. We were just trading places, reversing roles, the spirit of the house, the doppelganger, is stronger than ever, his spirit alive and now having traded places slowly his ghost will live in me. I could become him, like him, even if my being an inferior product didn't earn the same amount of love. Perhaps too practical for my own good nonetheless I knew my place and if I were conspiring to take his place I had to earn it; I certainly wasn't delusional.

"I called her already. Thought you might know if she R.S.V.P'd. I've been so busy that I've hardly been in the house till you got here."

A dirty look was my first response, but intuition stopped me before my glib tongue caught up to my expression. I was supposed to play the part of diplomatic Anders, not irritable Bobby. Without dress rehearsal I was liable to make a few errors.

"It'll be good to see her again. We can rehash. We haven't seen her in a while. Is she still in advertising? She very bright."

"I saw her a few weeks ago", I told Auntie, though this was not true. I saw her nearly on a daily basis now at the Advertising Agency, since I had landed her a temp spot data processing. What a golden opportunity, Auntie, having opened the door for my announcement. For some reason I looked back at the open door.

"And you didn't say anything. Where did you see her?"

This was a cinch and she was looking directly at me again. My mouth felt fine. What else was I waiting for? What could have been easy became complicated. I thought about erector sets. How I hated putting them together as a kid. It must have been a curse that I was given them. Anders loved tinkering with my set.

"She stopped by my apartment," I lied, "She lent me some book on the McDonaldization of the World as the subtitle, something to that extent. Forgot the main title. Thick book with lots of footnotes - I was surprised she stopped by and more so that she brought along a doorstopper of a book."

"Did you cook for her?"

"She didn't stay THAT long, had a jazz-aerobic class, said we'd hear from her real soon," I re-LIED. Lying wasn't impossible; it easily rolled off my tongue. But why wasn't she leading me better with her curiosity? My once unbridled enthusiasm must've flown out the door.

"That girl won't eat for anything. I tell you when she has kids they're going to be malnourished."

"Look at me I'm skin and bones."

"That's because you don't take care of yourself. You feed the homeless but you forget to feed yourself. Always someone but yourself - no need to be a martyr your whole life."

Startled by a heavenly humming I looked back at the door. It was Kathleen who had what appeared to be a halo on her head, the sun was setting and the odd bent light turned her into an angel. Auntie made no effort to conceal her disdain toward the friendliest nun upstate. Ever since we were kids Kathleen had a crush on Anders, Auntie was, for lack of a better term, envious of Kathleen since she tagged along wherever Anders went.

"I didn't mean to intrude. Thought I just might catch you." She placed four large bags of canned goods on the floor and a can of pineapple chunks rolled over to me. She took a step back, afraid to enter the house, never feeling comfortable in Auntie's presence. I picked up the can and approached her, a little peeved that I hadn't told Auntie my great news, but I was glad that Auntie wasn't raving about advertising in front of Kathleen. She was a delicate matter. I would have to do some heavy duty explaining if Kathleen knew I was hanging up my soup kitchen apron.

"How are you today Mrs. Thornton?" Kathleen asked, her cherubic cheeks smooth and delicate, softer in appearance than the gentlest tissues or lace handkerchiefs you could find, in contrast to the weather worn woman walking into the kitchen, perhaps for some tea, but mostly to get away from the nun who coveted her son.

"We're going to have quite a crowd tomorrow." Kathleen came over and hugged me when Auntie was gone. Her hair smelled delicious. I could've taken a huge bite. It was a mix of wild berry shampoo, flower and egg yolks. The day before Thanksgiving she was always baking up a storm. She wanted the homeless to feel the opposite of their society given name: homeless - she wanted them to feel at home. Her apple and pumpkin pies did the trick.

"It's great to see you it's been-"

"Too long."

"It really has." We both looked at each other.

"Any good stories. Anyone special in your life?" She picked up the bags, but I only let her carry one. Grabbing the other three I began to prattle, she didn't seem to be paying attention however. She softly shut the door behind us.